


Dead Souls

by aireyv



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gabir cameo, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Near Death Experiences, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26087668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aireyv/pseuds/aireyv
Summary: Taking back from the conquistadors who took their share.
Kudos: 8
Collections: Metal Gear Solid - Summer Games -2020





	Dead Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Another old scrap I polished up. I'd never post these if it weren't for fic challenges, huh.

By the time the bombing campaign reached the prisoner camp, Liquid was the only POW left still alive. Of course, he hardly noticed that nowadays. It had been about three years, and for most of it, the Iraqis had kept him drugged with opium so he would stop trying to attack them or escape, or at least quiet down his constant yelling and swearing. He was almost grateful for it, too. His thighs had been in constant pain ever since one of his captors had taken a sledgehammer to them - to say nothing of the kind of other activities Liquid was subjected to. The opium made the agony go away.

He was half in a daze when he heard the first explosion. He sat up blearily, wondering what was going on, and grateful that his tolerance had increased over the years to the point where they could force opium down his throat until he vomited and he still couldn’t get completely high. Calmed down and pain dulled, yes, but alert enough that when the second, closer bomb went off, the adrenaline quickly flushed his system of most of the drug.

For a while he’d been working on getting this chunk of rock out of the wall - working very slowly and in small increments so the rock wouldn’t crumble and the guards wouldn’t notice, but it was almost detached. He tore it out now with enough force and desperation that he tore off one of his fingernails (which he didn’t notice) and hefted it in his hand a few times, gauging its weight. Then he heard footsteps coming down the stairs next to his cell and he grinned for the first time since the day he was captured. He knew what was coming.

The sniper from the roof didn’t. The sniper from the roof had rushed by Liquid’s cell without so much as glancing in it, and paid for his negligence with a good-sized, well-aimed stone to the temple. He went down without a word.

Liquid crawled over (or rather dragged himself because his legs were broken and atrophied) to the sniper, taking his rifle off of him - as he did so, he noticed that the sniper wasn’t breathing, so if he weren’t already dead, he would be soon - and slinging it over his back. He dragged himself up the staircase to the roof.

The light hurt his eyes terribly, but he didn’t have time for that. He could hear the planes now, and the bombs were coming close. Below him, the outpost was abuzz - everyone was outside, throwing things into cars and onto horses for a quick escape. Not too many soldiers here, though - perfect. Liquid set up the rifle with some difficulty where the previous sniper had been stationed - next to the ammo he’d left behind.

Perfect.

The Iraqis’ first sign that Liquid was fucking pissed and not about to throw away his shot was when said shot pierced the forehead of a soldier driving a jeep carrying eight other soldiers, sending it swerving into the side of a building. The building collapsed, crushing the car and killing anyone who wasn’t already dead on impact. The whole camp, already thrown into chaos, completely lost it.

Liquid’s grin widened. He was no Quiet, but  _ damn  _ he was good.

The other soldiers didn’t have time to open fire on the roof before Liquid started nailing them. Most of them were dispatched with a simple, supposedly painless headshot - but  _ some _ of them - some of them, Liquid recognized. Liquid recognized the people who had committed outrages against him. The people he had promised them he would make them  _ regret _ ever hurting him.

Those were the ones he spent  _ extra _ ammo on.

Those ones he shot in the legs first, then the arms, immobilizing them in the sand and the blazing sun, but leaving them alive. Anyone who tried to come to their aid was killed immediately. The only mercy for  _ them _ would come if the bombs got them before they either died of exposure or were eaten alive by scavenger animals.

Liquid damn well  _ hoped _ they’d spend their final moments cursing him.

The whole spectacle was over in just under three minutes, before the first bomb had even detonated in the outpost itself. The only survivor on the Iraqi side was a young soldier who rode off on a horse, screaming about the devil.

_ He’d  _ always been kind to the POWs, and especially Liquid… probably because they were similar ages. Whatever his reasons, Liquid let him live. Because he’d been kind, and because he was Liquid’s warning to the world.

A bomb took out the building the car had crashed into. Liquid abandoned the sniper post and crawled back down the stairs - fell, more like, but he weighed almost nothing nowadays and could never fall too hard - into the same cell he’d been kept in since ’91. It wouldn’t do much for him if the building happened to be bombed, but if it stood, it was shelter. Who knew how long it would take for another living human being to arrive here? And when they did - they might be coalition forces who would take him back to England and safety, or they might be Iraqi troops who would take him prisoner again or kill him in retaliation for everyone in the camp.

The bombing, too, was over almost as quickly as it started. An eerie silence settled over the outpost. Liquid could faintly hear groaning - a few of the immobilized soldiers still lived.

By the time night fell, the groaning had stopped. The bombing had been in the morning - an entire afternoon motionless in the desert sun, well… Liquid didn’t want to think about the details as he huddled in dark and cold.

He ran out of water the next day. He’d only had the canteen he’d taken off of the sniper, which was already half-empty, and while there were other canteens, moving anywhere took such monumental effort that it would actually work against him to crawl out there and collect them.

He started to get delirious around midnight. The next day he hovered in and out of unconsciousness until he heard footsteps outside. He didn’t know who they belonged to - hell, he didn’t  _ care _ \- and his throat was too dry to make any kind of sound, so he tossed a small stone at a bird pecking at the sniper’s corpse. It squawked angrily and the footsteps paused. Still unsure if they were real or not, Liquid passed out, knowing that if there really was no one, he wouldn’t wake up this time.

A UN soldier stuck his head in the door. “Hey,” he called out to his comrades in accented English, “this one looks fresh.”

“How?” someone yelled back. “Everyone else has been baking for days.”

“Dunno. Looks like a prisoner.” He walked over to Liquid, then dropped to his knees, eyes suddenly wide. “Oh, my God! He’s alive! Quick, get the medic!”


End file.
